Tell us about Aintree and what it’s like to be a retailer in Liverpool. I’ve been here 18 months and this is the third Liverpool store I’ve worked in during my 28 years with Asda. We’re a high footfall, 24-hour shop. We serve around 6,000 customers in store and deliver 500 online orders each day. Our location on the outskirts of the city means we’re more a destination shop. A lot of customers are coming for big shops – average spend is about £35.
Customers in Liverpool are very loyal, but they don’t mind giving you the absolute honest truth about how your store is on that given day. They can be demanding, and very forthright, but that’s great, as it means we can meet those demands. They’re prepared to spend the money, but they want the best value, and best service for their families. It’s critical we get it right.
You’re not far from Aintree racetrack. Do you get a footfall boost? Not at all. Any race event really throws our footfall pattern out of the window. It’s a ghost town Friday, Saturday, Sunday because all of the roads are closed. However, it’s bookended by a mini-Christmas on the Monday and Thursday, when all the locals come in for their full shop. We’re also close to both Liverpool and Everton football clubs and will be much busier on matchday mornings and then quieter in the afternoon. Any sporting event, and seasonality in general, is a really big thing in Liverpool. We become the busiest store in the region at Christmas.
You won despite having the joint-lowest availability this week. What went wrong? It’s disappointing but wasn’t a shock. There were some operational challenges on Saturday, with deliveries coming in late, which affected getting stock out. It was just a freak day. We’ve made a lot of progress on availability over the past few months, and normally our scores are much higher.
That said, it was contrasted by brilliant customer service… It’s been a real drive since Allan Leighton returned. When I started with Asda, and for many years, we always made a big thing of delivering legendary customer service, selling with soul and with personality. It was our point of difference to our competitors, but we came away from it over recent years. It’s something we’ve been really pushing for the past four to six months, through our communications with colleagues, in daily meetings and rewards. It means that when we have challenges like we did at the weekend, we can still win over the customers. The lasting impression of our store is the interaction they have with our team.
Did you have any disruption from the Walmart IT transition? We had some rocky times with our home shopper system when we switched over in August, but it’s all settled down.We’re all guns blazing now.
How are you going to keep spirits up during the Christmas period? We have 350 colleagues, so it can be a challenge to maintain that close-knit rapport. As a manager you have to spend a lot of time on the shop floor, getting to know them and listening. That then flows into the morale of the team. Our colleagues are the engine room of our shop, nothing would be possible without them. We’re asking them to work long hours and harder days and remember, they have families at home too, so we have to look after them in store.
We’ve got a few events planned in the run-up to Christmas, as well as our 12 Days of Christmas recognition scheme. I’m really pleased with the shape of the shop heading to Christmas, we’re probably a week ahead of where we were last year. Volumes are up, prices and availability are better, and our system will be a lot slicker this year. We’re looking forward to the next four weeks.
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